Kenyan nationals have filed almost one-third of all visa applications lodged in the Eastern African region for 2022, representing 48,892 applications in total.
According to Schengen Statistics, the majority of applications filed by this nationality received a positive response – 114,282 compared to 35,297 or 24 per cent that were rejected. Regardless, the rejection rate for Kenyans was a little above the average for this region, which stood at 23.25 per cent, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Compared to the rest of the Eastern African countries, Kenya had the third-highest rate of a visa issued per 100,000 people – with 65 people being visa holders, while Comoros and Djibouti had higher rates of 206 and 248, respectively.
This means that approximately every 1,538 visa applicants in Kenya received a positive answer to their request. In total, Kenyans spent €3.9 million on visa application fees in 2022. Taking into consideration that the average annual wage in the country is €5,237 or €436 monthly, a visa application fee costs Kenyans over 18 per cent of their salary.
In general, the total number of visa applications filed by nationals of the Eastern Africa region reached 153,757, while the rejection rate stood at 21.8 per cent, indicating that 35,297 of all applications were denied.
Countries where Kenyans applied the most include Sweden (12,973), Spain (4,216) and the Netherlands and Italy, with 2,832 and 3,790 applications, respectively.
After Kenya, Ethiopia had the highest number of applications filed – 21,099 and one of the countries with the most rejected applicants – around 28.9 per cent of visa applications from Ethiopians were denied, reaching a total of 5,977 applicants.
This means that 11 visas were issued per every 100,000 Ethiopian applicants in 2022, and every 8,714 people in this African country received a positive response for their application.
The average wage in Ethiopia is estimated to be around €710 monthly, while the average expenses made for visa applications in 2022 peaked at €1.6 million.
Mozambique and Madagascar are the two other countries with the highest application rates from the region, 16,177 and 15,027, respectively, but the rejection rate between these two countries varies a lot.
More specifically, only 8.9 per cent of applications filed by Mozambique nationals were disapproved, while Madagascar had one of the highest rejection rates – 30 per cent, falling only behind Comoros and Burundi.
On the other hand, the countries with the fewest visa applications recorded for 2022 are South Sudan, Mauritius, and Eritrea, which altogether filed less than 2,000 applications.